


The Face I've Always Had

by TheColorBlue



Series: Ohana Means Family [7]
Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hulk has been turned human by magic, which is different from changing into the body that is Bruce Banner's; he hates this puny body that isn't his, but maybe it's what everyone else had always wanted. He's not a monster anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The change came in the morning, while Hulk was idly swimming laps at the bottom of the rooftop pool, and then he doubled over, the muscles and bones of his body contorting. His lungs constricted and shrunk. He thrashed with the sensation of drowning, and then there was someone pulling him to the surface of the water. 

At the side of the pool, clinging to the tiled rim, Hulk turned to look at Tony, who was treading water alongside. Tony's eyes were narrowed. 

Tony said, “You’re not Bruce, or Hulk.”

“I _am_ Hulk,” Hulk rasped angrily, and his body was too small, and his lungs were too weak, and he looked at the pale peach color of his tiny hands, and then away, clamping down on a sudden terror. Bruce was there in his head as well, telling him _it’s okay, it’ll be okay,_ but sometimes Hulk was sure Banner didn’t know a damn thing, and he felt limp and angry and scared as Tony helped him out of the pool. 

\--

“I can only presume that this is Asgardian magic,” Thor said at last, where the Avengers were gathered in the kitchen, Hulk sitting on a stool with Clint hovering just behind in a protective way, and Tony running through databases on his Starkpad while muttering things like “I hate magic,” and Jan pressed a glass of orange juice into Hulk’s hands. 

Hulk stared at the glass, and then put it onto the granite countertop without drinking from it. His hands felt wrong. His entire body felt wrong. The perspective of the entire room felt _wrong_ , and he had the sudden wild urge to hide away inside his body, letting Bruce out, but Bruce had insisted that Hulk sit outside so that the others could run diagnostics on his condition. They’d already tried switching, just to see if that had been effected. Bruce could come out fine as himself, but when Hulk reemerged, it was the same old tune. 

Hulk was human now. He didn’t look anything like Bruce, with his broad shoulders, and black hair, and deep-set green eyes. He was human, and puny, and he hated it. He glowered at the kitchen countertop, looking at the stone rather than at his hands, or at his teammates. 

Steve said, from across the table, “Hulk, don’t worry. The last time, when Thor, Tony, and I were depowered by magic, it wasn’t permanent.”

“Spells such as this often possess keys that will break them,” Thor agreed. “There are few accounts of magic that are irreversible.” 

Jan swung her legs back and forth from where she was sitting, biting her lip a little. “I just worry because this seems too much like someone taking out one of our strongest fighters, you know? I worry that someone’s going to try something on us now.” 

Clint made an incredulous noise. “And, what, the rest of us are completely helpless? Yeah, last time we came out fine, there’s no reason it should be any different this time around—“

And then Hulk was shaking Clint’s hand off his shoulder and stalking off. He heard Jan say his name, and then Clint repeating it, but he jogged off to the foyer of the mansion, and then out the front door. Clint caught his hand before he could get too far down the front path, and Hulk swung round to snarl at Clint, “Leave me alone!”

Clint just look at Hulk, brow cocked slightly. “You’re kidding, right? In this state, you could be a walking target—“

“I’m not really an Avenger anymore, right?” Hulk demanded.

Clint made a noise of surprise and confusion. “What?”

“Ages ago, you said that to Bruce because he was too weak to fight. Now I’m too weak to fight, I’m not really—“

“What— _what_ , no, stop that, you know I was just being an ass,” Clint hadn’t let go of Hulk’s hand, and now his voice took on a kind of urgency, “No, big guy, no. This doesn’t change anything. Besides, we’ll fix this, you heard all that talk about Asgardian magic—“

Hulk looked back at Clint with narrowed eyes. “What makes you so sure I haven’t already been fixed?”

Clint was looking at him like he was crazy, and Hulk said, like talking to an idiot, “I’m human now. I’ve been fixed, and it didn’t kill me, and everyone around here always says these things about Gamma monsters, so now I’m not a monster anymore.” He tried to talk calm, but there was a ragged edge to his voice. There was a ragged ache in his chest.

Clint’s grip had tightened a little on Hulk’s wrist, like he was afraid of Hulk’s running away. “Babe. Jade Jaws. Come on, look at me?” Clint was talking soft now, pleading a little. 

Hulk didn’t, and Clint let go of Hulk’s wrist to try to cup Hulk’s face in his hands and pull him into a kiss, but Hulk moved away. He was only an inch taller than Clint, now, and Hulk also had a feeling that even Clint was a stronger fighter than him in this state. 

“Hulk,” Clint said quietly. “It’s okay. Is this—this body, is this what you want?”

“No,” Hulk said. It was the honest answer, from his gut. He didn’t want this. This wasn’t him. But it was what everyone else wanted for him, he knew. Maybe it was even what Clint wanted.

 _Don’t talk like that,_ he heard Bruce say. _You know that isn’t true._

Hulk made a mental noise like a low growl. What did Bruce know anyway, he’d always been the normal one, the one who could pass in the crowd, the one who no one ever looked at funny, like at a monster. And while there was a degree to which he knew this attack on Bruce’s character and perspective was unfair, Hulk couldn’t bring himself to care, then. 

“I’ll love you no matter what you look like,” Clint was saying, soft but urgent. As though trying to make Hulk believe it, but Hulk wasn’t sure he believed. Of course Clint had always loved him, but now that he'd been given some kind of a choice...

Hulk wasn't sure he could let himself believe. But he let Clint pull him back inside, where the others were waiting, and Tony said he’d get T’Challa, and maybe Bruce could come out, and they’d talk about what they could do, if there was anything to be done, but honestly these things always seemed to be about waiting games, anyway, and Hulk hunkered down and let Bruce out because he couldn’t stand being in this puny body that wasn’t his.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint sat on a stool and drummed idly on the lab bench while Tony, Bruce, and T’Challa talked science in front of a computer screen and over samples of blood drawn from both Bruce and Hulk. Tony had absently draped an arm over Bruce’s skinny shoulders while Bruce talked a mile a minute. T’Challa stood close by, arms crossed, but his overall manner was relaxed. Bruce manipulated the charts on the screen with his hands as he talked. His movement style was different from Tony’s; Bruce was brisk and direct, taking the shortest possible path from point A to point B. Tony was a little more showy, usually, with the circular patterns of his hands. Clint listened to their talk.

“Any traces of gamma radiation are basically gone now,” Bruce said. His voice was soft, but steady and clear as he went on. “Like the accident never happened—but it’s weird, you know? Like someone else’s DNA is still patterned in there—you introduce the right brain patterns, or adrenaline, one of the two, and then suddenly there’s an entirely new line of alternative DNA translation and protein synthesis—really strange. You know mutant shapeshifters? I wonder if there’s any parallels between the paths of gene expression—of course, like T’Challa pointed out, we’ve got all of this other regulation going on too, inexplicable stuff that, ah, of course Tony would just toss off as—“

“Pixie dust from Fantasyland?” Tony supplied helpfully. He was looking amused, though, hand now moved to lie lightly against Bruce’s back as he leaned in closer to the computer screen. “I mean, come on, it’s just idiotic—proteins aren’t supposed to do that—“ he said, pointing to one of the images. Clint honestly couldn’t tell what they were blathering on about, half the time. He just wanted to be sure that Hulk, and Bruce, would be all right. Not that Bruce seemed like anything except his usual self. 

Meanwhile, T’Challa said, “A closed mind will keep you from—“

“I know, I know,” Tony interrupted. “Seeing the secrets of the universe or whatever it is, blah blah blah.”

T’Challa shrugged, smiling now with his eyes. “In any case, it would appear as though our friends Bruce and Hulk are entirely fine.”

“That’s true,” Bruce said. “I mean, as far as I can tell, we’re in perfect health. Hulk’s…really unhappy about this, but, well, I’m pretty sure worse things could have happened.”

“And on the bright side,” Tony added, “As long as you’re like this, neither the military nor SHIELD is going to care about getting their hands on Hulk—“

“Tony,” Bruce said, like a mild warning.

Tony made an awkward gesture—or going on with his usual socially awkward mannerisms—as he said, “What?” When Bruce just looked at him, Tony said, “Okay, all right, I’m sorry, that was insensitive—“

On their other side, Clint had already slid off his stool and walked to the door of the lab. 

\--

Clint was in his room, cleaning his kit and his bow, when Bruce came to the door. 

“Are you all right?” Bruce asked. 

Clint had put out all his equipment in rows and small piles on the floor. It probably looked like a mess, and Clint put down the parts of his bow that he’d been holding, saying, “What? Yeah, I’m fine. Absolutely great.” Then he asked, “How’s the big guy doing?”

Bruce walked into the room, looking studiously over the arrows that Clint had laid out. “He’s fine. He doesn’t want to come out, right now. But he’s fine.” Bruce knelt down next to where Clint had been sitting with his legs sprawled out. He picked up an arrow with a tranquilizing tip, and then put it back down. “It’s going to be difficult for him,” Bruce said, “if we don’t get this fixed soon. I think to a lot of people out there, it’d be hard to understand, but Hulk is really—upset.”

Clint turned to look at Bruce. “Tell him that if he needs me, I’ll be here.”

Bruce nodded. “He already knows.”

Bruce left Clint alone, after that, and Clint put away all his equipment. He sat with his back to the bed, staring at the wall and he thought: even without the green skin, and all the muscle, he could see Hulk in this new face. It was still Hulk’s face, only scaled down, and softened just a little. Hulk somehow looked younger now. His scowls looked more petulant than ever. Was it weird that Hulk still didn’t look anything like Bruce? But whatever it was, Hulk was smaller now, and also, he was very attractive. Clint didn’t know. Of course he’d been attracted to Hulk before, but all the qualities of it had been different. He’d loved being able to fling his arms around Hulk’s neck, or to lie in Hulk’s lap, his cheek resting against the expanse of Hulk’s chest. He’d loved his Hulk. So was it a betrayal if he was attracted to the way Hulk looked now as well? Particularly when Hulk wasn’t happy like this? But he’d told Hulk that he’d love him no matter what he looked like. He wanted to mean that. 

Clint sat on the floor of his bedroom, wondering and worrying and getting a little angry with it, at himself mostly, at his own sense of helplessness, and then he stood up to get his costume. He’d go out on patrol maybe, see if he couldn’t scrounge up any more evil-doing or whatever, or maybe even the evil-doing behind Hulk's transformation, or at the very least he could try to burn off this useless anxiety.

He put on his costume, and then he went out through the balcony.


	3. Chapter 3

Bruce tried to talk about it with Hulk, ruminating on stories about shape shifters and changing bodies, changing appearances. 

All Hulk knew, to his increasing frustration and rage, was that he didn’t know how to fight. In his new, puny body, he couldn’t carry on as he usually did. He couldn’t smash things with a complete disregard for whether they’d smash him back. Before, he’d been practically invulnerable. It hadn’t mattered what he did. Now, in the early morning and using the training room, he found that it hurt his knuckles even to punch a stationary bag. He didn’t know how to throw a punch, and the bag barely swung back after his fist had made impact. 

Clint found him sitting on the floor on the edge of the large room, nursing bruised knuckles. Clint sat down next to him and offered an ice pack. Hulk eyed the ice pack, then Clint, with a scowl. 

“It’ll help,” Clint said mildly, not backing down. 

Hulk finally took the ice pack. Clint scooted over closer to pet a hand through Hulk’s hair, affectionate-like, and Hulk absently leaned towards the touch, though still grimacing down at his sore hands. 

Bruce had spent the previous night over in Tony’s bedroom, as according to the usual schedule. Clint had been out, anyway, when they’d passed his bedroom again after dinner and hadn’t seen any sign of the blond man. Hulk liked the familiar feeling of Clint’s fingers stroking through his hair, but now the idea of Clint getting closer, of putting his arms around Hulk, or trying that sort of intimacy—something about the idea made Hulk feel sick. Everything felt wrong. He couldn’t move right. He kept nearly tripping over his own feet, misjudging distances. He hated feeling so small, weak, and vulnerable. It was wrong that he was so small, next to Clint. At the same time, he missed Clint. He missed the sensation of holding Clint. He missed protecting him. 

Clint simply stroked Hulk’s hair a little longer, and then pulled away. They sat together, listening to a sound that might have been the training room’s air ventilation systems, and a low hum underneath that might have been other machinery, electronics, before Clint said, “Jan wants to take you shopping.”

Hulk looked over at Clint in disbelief. “You’re joking?” he tried, dubiously. 

Clint smirked, and then patted Hulk on the knee, afterwards letting his hand rest there companionably. “Nope. She says, she’s not going to let you keep running around in clothes borrowed off me and Tony, seeing as how you don’t fit Bruce’s clothes. I think, we’re just going to get you some jeans, or slacks, and shoes that will fit you, and some nice shirts. Jan was already dreaming about picking up some things that will match your eyes—which, as always, are gorgeous, love.”

“If I change back,” Hulk began.

“This is just for fun,” Clint said. “For Jan, really.” Then he said, “I was up nearly all night. Nothing odd going on in the city, as far as I can tell; well, nothing more odd than usual. Also, nothing related to what happened to you. I’ll keep trying to see if I can dig anything up.” 

Clint sounded a little weary, then. Hulk hesitated, and then reached out to touch his hand to Clint’s chin. “Cupid needs sleep too,” he said. 

Clint just grinned wryly. “So, Jade Jaws is worried about me, huh?”

Hulk shrugged, suddenly feeling ill at ease again. But then he pushed that feeling down, and he moved forward to kiss his Clint. It was strange. It felt different, but good. The shape of their mouths fit, in a way that they had never fit before, and there it was again, that old ache in Hulk’s chest. Hulk let his mouth linger against Clint’s, and then Clint made a small noise in his throat, and deepened the kiss. After a while, Clint pulled away. He looked a little flushed, and aroused, but all he said was, “All right, I think Jan’s waiting—“

“Clint, I want you to touch me,” Hulk blurted out. He waited a second to see Clint’s reaction, and then he was blushing when he added, clumsily, “Please.”

Clint stared at him. “What?” Then, “Right now? Here?”

“JARVIS,” Hulk began, pitching his voice towards the general room, and not quite looking at Clint. 

“Training Room Level 1 now set to private, scheduled for Hawkeye and Hulk usage only, sir,” came the genteel voice from the ceiling. 

“Hulk,” Clint said, uneasily. “I don’t know, you’re not—I don’t want you to regret later—I mean; I don’t know if this is right—“

Hulk made an impatient, nearly angry noise. “It’s never right,” Hulk found himself snapping. “It’s not right when I’m big and green and a Hulk, and it’s not right when I’m small and puny and human—there’s nothing right about me, I’m a Hulk, and—“ he felt his voice somehow becoming smaller, and strange, “and this would be the first time we could do this in the way that’s right. For _you_.” 

Clint cupped Hulk’s cheek with one hand and kissed him firmly. When he pulled back, it was to say, very softly, “It’s always been right for me.” 

Then he pushed Hulk back and kissed him again, reaching down. 

\--

Jan didn’t ask what they’d been up to, when they showed up to meet her in the front sitting room, half an hour later. She only put down her magazine, grinned at Hulk, and then said, “Finally! Now I can take you out shopping.”

Hulk didn’t say anything (his face said it all) and Clint didn’t bother hiding a laugh, holding Hulk’s hand in his.


	4. Chapter 4

Clint and Jan were standing together in the men’s section of Macy’s, just outside the men’s fitting rooms and waiting for Hulk. Actually, Clint had been feeling just a little confused himself, and strange, standing there. Knowing Jan, he’d been surprised she hadn’t insisted on taking Hulk out to one of those fancy boutiques she frequented for her own clothes. Or, maybe the sense of confusion had just as much to do with the fact that Clint was now realizing how long it’d been since he’d last been in a store like this. He tended to have the same kind of gear, his uniform seeing the most damage from use, and that was a custom job in and of itself. His civilian wardrobe really hadn’t changed much over the last few years. He wore the same sets of clothes. He didn’t really care. “Going shopping” was just a set of words that Jan had used in an off-hand way, and now the implications were finally sinking in, and Hulk himself hadn’t looked exactly comfortable, following Jan as she selected pieces for him to try on. 

“All right, confession time,” Jan said, conspiratorially at Clint. She’d hooked her hands behind her back, shifting her weight to her toes, looking light as a bird with today’s ensemble of pale yellows and white edged in sharp black. “So I dragged all of you out here because, honestly? If Hulk—well, hulks back out again—man that sounds so weird, Hulk hulking out— _anyway_ , when would be the next time you would be able to convince him to engage in such ordinary-citizen-types activities like shopping for a new pair of pants? Never, that’s when! Hulk needs to get out, it’s not good for him to be spending all of his time at the house—“

Clint frowned at Jan, finally getting what she was trying to drive at. “Jan,” Clint interrupted. “Now that we're here, I don’t think—all of this,” he waved his hand around the department store, “I don’t think this is Hulk’s thing.” He folded his arms across his chest, sort of eyeing the displays of clothes and other accoutrements. “Honestly? I think he’d rather be out in the woods with Banner than here.” Clint would have rather been out in the woods with Bruce than here. Fishing even, and he hated fishing. 

“Oh, hush,” Jan said, putting a hand to Clint’s arm like that would stop him, and making a face halfway between pout and warning. “Look, I’ve made this as easy and painless for him as possible, just piled all the stuff on him, he’s in the fitting room now, we’ll be out again before you know it. We can get his favorite pizza as a reward, my treat. What do you think of that last button-up shirt I got for him? With the slacks, he’d look great, don’t you think—“

Clint looked down at Jan, who seemed still bubbling with all the usual energy. “Jan,” he said. He definitely edged a warning into his tone then. “Are you—is this some kind of Hulk intervention? What are you trying to pull—“

Jan made an impatient noise then, and said, “Clint, I’m his friend too, right? And I think—really, this is going to be the best chance we’ll ever have to let Hulk wander around the city, just the three of us as normal civilians and not Avengers—I don’t think he’s ever had that—Well, not as himself, not without Bruce sitting in for him—“

Clint pulled away from Jan while she talked, and she frowned at him a little then, but kept rattling on, trying to convince him. The whole damn afternoon was feeling too surreal. When Jan had suggested shopping earlier that day, it had sounded so harmless, but now that he was actually out here with her and Hulk, out in this department store with people all around, and the entire nonsense air of it—

“This was a bad idea,” Clint finally got out, but Jan wasn’t listening to him. She was saying, “Oooh, you look great!” and Clint looked past Jan, at this stranger-who-wasn’t and who was wearing clothes that actually fit him, for once, not tight around the shoulders and chest, not baggy and torn at the knees. But Hulk was wearing a blankly sullen expression, and Clint couldn’t help but grin at him then, feeling a peculiar sort of relief and familiarity. Hulk eyed him back, and then seemed to allow himself to smile just a little. 

Sorting through the clothes, Hulk showed Jan what he liked, what he didn’t like. Jan nodded and made her own assessments, then paid for the pile of it, moving swiftly and efficiently. Then she shepherded the two fellows along, and then they were back out on the street again with shopping bags and a very chipper Jan leading the way to where they’d be getting lunch. 

Clint watched Hulk, sideways, as they walked along the busy sidewalks, under the shadows of the concrete and glass buildings, the heights of the skyscrapers. Jan, he realized, was right. As Avengers, there was a sort-of built in sense of isolation from the rest of the world—and for Hulk most of all. He never stopped being an Avenger. He couldn’t go out on the street without being recognized for it. Hulk had rarely left the mansion to go out into the city. Clint had always just taken it in stride as part of Hulk’s routine and life—he had the things he liked to do around the mansion, and there was the yard and garden in the back, where he liked to take naps sometime—and then when there was the next villain of the week showing up, of course Hulk had gone out with the rest of the team. A lot of times, when Bruce wanted to go out for camping, Hulk would come out too. Hulk liked sleeping out under the stars, in the places where you could see the light of the stars without the city obscuring their clarity. 

The entire day felt too strange, too unreal, and ill-fitted. Clint could see what Jan was trying to do, but everything felt wrong. 

“How are you doing, big guy?” Clint asked, as they walked along, carrying the paper shopping bags.

Hulk shrugged. “I miss being myself,” he said. His voice seemed strangely quiet amid the noise of the crowds and the traffic. He seemed to look at everything in a sort of distant way. 

“We’ll get the pizza to go,” Clint said. “And then we’ll go home.”


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce had planned to use the hours up until dinner to work in his lab, analyzing the transformed Hulk DNA—but it was difficult when you had a ball of tense and unhappy Hulk in the back of your mind while you were trying to do it. Bruce abstractedly moved the windows around on his screen—playing with data comparisons pulled from the work of mutants Dr. David Haller and also Dr. Hank McCoy, doing cross-analysis with the abstracts of known studies—and then he closed everything up. He moved to the small office adjacent to the lab, and sat down on the couch located therein. Then he crossed his legs and closed his eyes. None of this was strictly necessary when talking to Hulk, of course, but it helped for what Bruce privately liked to call their Hulk-Banner talks. While bored one morning, and tired of watching soap operas or the news, Hulk had even drawn a picture once, as a joke, a crayon-scribble of himself lying on a long couch, and Bruce sitting in a chair beside, the words “And how does this make you feel?” coming out of his mouth. Clint had pinned it to the wall with an arrow, which Hulk had thought made the whole thing somehow extra perfect and hilarious. 

Bruce took the entire issue of their regular communication pretty seriously though, and so did Hulk. It helped Hulk a lot to talk things out inside their head. It helped to list out the things that he was thinking, to form into words the anxieties that might have been gnawing away at him. 

They sat together in the shared space of their minds, and Hulk rattled away, already used to the routine now. 

He said, _I don’t like crowds._ Bruce watched him shift around uneasily. _I don’t like so many people, and I don’t think… I don’t like wearing a shirt_. 

Bruce made a noise like _Hmmm_ , to show that he was thinking and listening. He said, after a moment, _Well, you know, you don’t have to wear a shirt. Clint would probably love that._ Actually, come to think of it, Tony sometimes made jokes about wanting to see Bruce around with his shirt off more often, and Bruce had shoved him out of bed. (Lovingly). 

Hulk said, _I didn’t know that I didn’t like shirts until I had to wear one_. 

_I guess there’s a lot of things we’re learning about you lately_ , Bruce said. 

_But Jan bought it for me, so I should wear it_. 

_Well. That’s interesting._

_What is?_ Now Hulk sounded a little suspicious.

Bruce gave a mental shrug. _Oh. I was remembering a time when you would have done what you wanted, regardless. And also scowled a lot, the whole show._

Now Hulk did growl Bruce, baring his teeth, but there was a kind of grin in there too. _That was a long time ago_.

_I guess it was._

_I still do what I want._

Bruce just smiled, and didn’t say anything in reply to that. 

In their mind, the way they saw each other—Hulk looked the same. He was still big and green and, when Bruce paid attention to it, he knew that they were sitting in a place like the lakeshore where he always liked to go fishing. 

When they went fishing, Clint always came too. 

Bruce knew that Clint hated fishing, but he got the feeling that Clint somehow had this big-brother mentality when it came to him, and also Clint considered this some very awkward bonding time or something. Clint liked the camping parts more than the fishing. He liked napping in the woods, and occasionally did a little hunting, and sometimes Bruce got bits and pieces of a difficult childhood when they talked. And then sitting with Hulk in the evenings on their sleeping bags, Clint talked to Hulk about the circus, and sometimes it was remembering happy things, but sometimes it wasn’t, and Hulk would press his cheek to Clint’s shoulder, and Clint would climb up on top of Hulk and just lie there, curled up on Hulk’s chest. 

Bruce wasn’t in love with Clint. Sometimes it felt odd, Hulk’s feelings bleeding over, but he just wasn’t. In a quieter way, he looked out for Tony instead—he didn’t know why. Comparatively speaking, he technically spent more time with Clint than he ever did with Tony. But. The awkward things Tony said so often made Bruce laugh. Tony’s quietly desperate need for family that he could trust made Bruce want to hold his hand. 

Bruce thought, he was getting distracted, looking out into the lake water. 

_I’m sorry you can’t be with Tony more often_ , Hulk said, and Bruce looked over in surprise. His thoughts must have been echoing over, and obvious. There was a look of something like guilt on Hulk’s face.

 _What? Oh. Now that, I can tell you, is a completely different pot. It has more to do with—well, it’s definitely nothing to do with you. Not even a little_. He just had a very different relationship with Tony. Hulk had a very different relationship with Clint. And Hulk—oddly enough, or aptly enough, Hulk had been growing up, these last few years. He projected these thoughts at Hulk, without saying them, and he knew Hulk was listening.

 _You used to be grey_ , Bruce noted after a moment, abstractly, and looking at the pale color of the sky. _You remember that?_

Hulk just made a noise like he was agreeing, and then went over to where the lake water lapped against the shore. He sat down, sticking his toes in. 

_Then you told me that you weren’t going to try to get rid of me, anymore_ , Hulk said. _I think after that, I changed green._

 _Green’s a good color on you_. 

Hulk nodded. 

Then to Bruce’s surprise, he could feel Hulk trying to will it into being, to change something of the landscape—and the next moment, Bruce was looking at a much smaller Hulk, a human one. Hulk stood up, and then looked down at his reflection. 

Hulk said, _Maybe I’m supposed to change again. Grey. Green. Now this. I don’t like it, but there’s a lot of things that I don’t like._

Then the image warped, and Hulk’s body changed again. He was green and looking down at himself. _But I’m glad Clint loves me like this. I’m really glad._

Bruce didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t very good at this, he thought, regretfully, and so he simply stood beside Hulk, being present with him. Some time passed like that, peacefully, with Hulk starting to toss stones into the water, before Bruce blinked, realizing that he was back in the office. Their Avengers card was making noises at them from their pocket, _Avengers, assemble!_

Bruce was about to stand up when he heard through the communicator, “Bruce—or Hulk, whoever’s up front right now, _stay right where you are!_ There’s a monster in the city, but don’t you dare leave the mansion, I swear I’ve got JARVIS keeping his peepers on you two for me—“

“Indeed, sirs,” was a very dry response from the ceiling. 

“Love you too, JARVIS. Anyway, I’ll be back before you know it—Tony says hi—“ Bruce found a wry smile tweaking his mouth at that, at this typically awkward and round-about gesture from Tony, and Clint went on, “And here’s me saying, love you Jade Jaws, but if you set foot outside the mansion, _I’ll be taking you down, you hear me?_ Hugs and kisses, babe—“

And then the communicator switched off. 

“Barton has instructed me to monitor your activities,” JARVIS said delicately. “For once, I am in agreement with his assessment.” 

“It’s fine. Thanks, JARVIS,” Bruce said.

“Always glad to be of service, sir.” 

Bruce looked down at the card, feeling peculiar things. Inside their mind, Hulk had turned around, and sat down on the gravelly beach of the lakeshore. He was very quiet, and Bruce slid their card back into his pocket, and went back to the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, this is going to be the longest fic I've posted on AO3. I also get the feeling that some of the imagery as it played out in my head was influenced by the Planet Hulk and Son of Banner arcs in the comic books. I kept thinking of that kid Skaar during the lake scenes.


	6. Chapter 6

The team came back a few hours later, tired and dirty. The monster, some kind of giant Asgardian snake-thing that had managed to get through, had rampaged through the city, and then escaped, vanishing after Thor had tried to beat it down. 

“Goddamn magic,” Tony grumbled, sprawled out on the couch of the front room in only his black and metallic under-armor. Most everyone else had found a place to sit or lie down, too, while waiting for take-out to be delivered for dinner. Jan had taken advantage of her wasp-size to curl up in a couch cushion like it was a giant bed. Carol and Steve were carrying out armfuls of bottled juice and vitamin water for everyone. T’Challa peaceably watched the room from where he was sitting, cross-legged, in his usual corner. 

Thor stood by the window, looking pensively outside. “I can only surmise that my brother, Loki, or else Amora the Enchantress, is once again attempting to attack us with their minions. I am only sorry that I could not have reached that foul beast soon enough to vanquish it once and for all.” 

Tony waved his hand idly, and then said, “Hey, don’t beat yourself up over it. We’ll get it, sooner or later. You know we always do.” 

“Go Avengers,” Jan mumbled, still-face down in the couch-cushion. 

Clint was sitting on the floor next to Hulk. A few days ago, he would have been sitting in Hulk’s lap, leaning against Hulk like a personal sofa. Hulk never minded that, really. Actually, he liked it a lot. Today though, Clint sat a little apart. He had told Hulk, a little apologetically, that he was being careful of a bruised shoulder. Hulk sat beside Clint and tried not to think about how the battle would have ended differently, surely, if only he had been there with the team. It was a stupid thought, anyway, he knew. His teammates weren’t exactly helpless.

He looked down at his hands. They had healed after he’d switched between himself and Bruce, which was nice. He still didn’t know how to fight. He watched Clint as the other man peeled off his mask and chugged down a bottle of turquoise-colored vitamin water. Clint finished about half of it, before looking over at Hulk and smiling a little, offered the bottle. Hulk shook his head, and Clint finished the rest of the bottle. 

\---

Carol followed Hulk into the kitchen when the Chinese take-out had arrived, and Hulk had said, in his usual gruff way, he’d get extra plates and utensils. It had seemed like the right thing to do. Everyone else was lying around in varying states of exhaustion, and Hulk hadn’t done anything at all that evening. Well, actually, Carol seemed all right as far as energy levels—and Steve for that matter as well. The two of them were just extra special in that way, Hulk supposed, eying Carol sideways as he took down some plates from the cupboard, and then Carol opened the silverware drawer, counting out spoons and forks. 

“I guess we don’t know each other very well, still,” Carol said, after a moment. It was said in a friendly way, but also straight-forward. “Ah. But you know. Thanks for helping with the plates.”

Hulk just shrugged. 

“You look good like this, by the way,” Carol offered. “It’s a good look on you. Still Hulk, but scaled down a bit. I guess I’m just trying to say that I hope you’re not feeling too down about all of this. We’ll fix it, I’m sure, and, well. At least you still have some muscle, have you seen Steve pre-serum? The guy was adorable, but he also looked like a toothpick! Like you could have poked him and he’d fall over.”

Hulk was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “You like Steve, don’t you?”

“Hey!” Carol said. “I’m trying to be nice here! Give a girl a break, won’t you?” She was smiling wryly at Hulk though. 

Hulk shrugged again. Then he smiled back. 

\---

The idea that he could have been even scrawnier as a human, like Steve, had been a little amusing at first, and then it wasn’t. He already knew what it was like to be in a skinny, tiny body, even if it was distanced by being behind Bruce. 

That night, Hulk slept badly.

There were two dreams that still occasionally reoccurred for Hulk. One was where he was back in the isolated military prison. The second was about the attack of Red Hulk, or General Ross, just prior to that. Hulk still had nightmares about Red Hulk holding Clint up like a rag doll, crushing his arm like it was nothing, like it meant nothing. Hulk still remembered Clint’s scream of pain, and the agony of fighting his way past the adrenaline-suppressers, past Bruce. 

Hulk woke up to Clint shaking him gently, saying urgently, “Hulk, Hulk! It’s okay. Wake up, I’m here, it’s okay.” 

Hulk struggled awake, in a cold sweat, and then he looked around. As a human, he couldn’t see as well in the dark. It took a while for him to adjust, and even then, he felt vaguely half-blind. But Clint’s arms were around him—and even that felt wrong, but Hulk didn’t move, just letting Clint lay his forehead against his neck, trying to soothe him. 

After a while, he cautiously lay back down again, and he let Clint hold him as they lay together in the bed. This was all very strange. It felt good, in a vague way, but it was also very strange. He lay there, listening to Clint’s breath as the other man seemed to slowly fall back asleep. 

Hulk lay very still beneath the bed sheets. He thought about how, as a hulk, he and Clint had to sleep a little apart on the enormous bed. Hulk didn’t tend to move around too much while sleeping, but he didn’t want to take any chances; he didn’t want to accidentally pin Clint under a too heavy arm in his sleep, or anything stupid like. It was so stupid. Thinking about everything, Hulk felt agitated, and upset, and unable to sleep, unable to think of anything except everything that was wrong with him and his life, and he finally slipped out of Clint’s arms and off the bed. He pulled on his boxers, and then a pair of sweatpants. He didn’t bother with a shirt. When he looked back, Clint still seemed to be asleep. So Hulk padded out of the room, and then down the hall, down a flight of stairs, and then out the far back door of the mansion towards the yard and garden.

Bruce liked to meditate in the garden, sometimes. Hulk went to the little bench where Bruce always liked to sit, and he sat there now, crossed-legged and staring pensively out at the neatly clipped lawn. He needed to calm down. Honestly, everything in his life with Clint had been going so well, Clint accepting him for who he was, and all the little accommodations and compromises of their life—there was nothing wrong with any of that. He needed to calm down—but then Hulk was struck by the thought: _or was that it?_ Maybe that was the problem, he wasn’t getting angry enough to break through whatever was holding him down, he needed to become angry enough to hulk out again—

Hulk stared out at the lawn, feeling his heart racing, and yet how everything was so still. There was a feeling, hot inside his chest, but it wasn’t the old rage. 

He wasn’t getting angry enough, was that it? Was that the irony of this stupid situation? But he was not who he was before, everything was getting all mixed up, all screwed up, and he knew who he wanted to be, who he was, and also he didn’t. He thought about being a grey hulk, and being even angrier, then, at the world. He thought about being a green hulk, and being mistrustful and petulant, but finally growing up a little over the years too. He thought about being a green hulk and being guided by Bruce, and loved by Clint. 

He thought about being a hulk on the run, being in the woods and the mountains with only Bruce for a companion, and when he lay down on the cool grass, there was a strange kind of comfort. There had been a time when nothing in the world had mattered, not even himself. He shut his eyes and tried to remember that time. 

When he woke again, it was barely sunrise. A blanket covered him, and Clint was sitting alongside. He was bare-chested, but there was a quiver of arrows at his back, his compound bow within reach as well. There was a dark bruise on his shoulder, and he was watching as the morning light began to fill the sky.


	7. Chapter 7

Hulk lay with his head leaning against Clint’s thigh, and ran still-unfamiliar hands through the grass, and he said to Clint, in a low voice, “It’s weird because—it used to be that Bruce would get mad, or scared, or whatever it was—and then I’d break through. It was as easy as that. I’m not even sure when it started—when it got so easy for us to switch back and forth like this. Maybe that’s part of what happened. Even if I’m mad, I don’t turn green. Maybe that’s over.”

Clint ran his fingers through Hulk’s hair and said. “Maybe it’s not about being mad. You’re not just some angry guy. You know that. I know that.”

Hulk looked up at Clint, and then away. He said, “I think—I’m tired of being angry.” 

Clint smiled, and then leaned down to kiss him. 

\---

The Asgardian snake came when Hulk had begun to doze off again. Light splintering across the grass as it seemed to manifest from the air. 

Clint pulled Hulk to his feet, saying, sharp and fast, “Hulk, get back to the mansion, don’t argue, I’ll cover you—“

Hulk looked back just long enough to see Clint take aim at an enormous snake that shone gold and emerald with the early morning sunlight. Then Clint let an arrow take fly, and there was a terrible sound as the arrow hit one of the snake’s eyes. 

Hulk got as far as the sloping steps of the mansion, and then looked back again. JARVIS had set off the alarm through the house, the others should have been out any minute now, and Clint was slowly backing away from the snake, shooting first a net that covered the snake’s face, then knocking off a few more arrows with electricity to stun it. The snake shook off the net, hissing and spitting—

And then it had caught Clint in the long loops of its body. The enormous muscles of it tensed, Hulk could see Clint choking, it was going to squeeze Clint until—

Oh, God. 

Hulk grabbed a fistful of the smooth, flat stones that decorated a nearby plant bed, and he hurled them at the snake. “You stupid monster!” Hulk shouted, as the stones glanced uselessly off the snake’s scales. “You stupid snake, let him go!” 

The snake turned to look at Hulk through its one good eye. It tossed Clint aside. Then it coiled back, and struck. 

It was hard to tell what happened after that. There was a sensation of being lifted, and then thrown back to the earth. There was terrible pain. Then T’Challa was coming out the door, followed by Janet and Tony and Thor overhead. Hulk lay on the grass. There was blood on his chest, and soaking into the grass; he struggled to breath. 

“Hulk. Oh, fuck, Hulk—“

Clint was kneeling over him. He caught Hulk’s fingers in his, and the skin was slick with blood. 

“Come on, stay with me buddy—“

Hulk thought, vaguely, it was so strange: having red blood. It was so strange to be bleeding. Once, he’d been practically invulnerable. 

He tried to hold Clint’s hand, focusing on the sensation as he shut his eyes tightly. Was this what it was like to die? He seemed to float in the strange and wet and cold sensation. Everything felt strange. He felt so small. Then he let go, and seemed to sink inside himself. There was a feeling of calm, and silence inside his head. Everything was so quiet, and he let his body go. 

Then Clint’s hand had tightened around his, his voice calling out to him, and distant. Hulk reached out again, and his mind seemed to brush something familiar.

It was a feeling like _wake up_. 

It was a feeling like needing to wake up and remember. It was remembering and changing. 

Once, he’d been a grey hulk. Then green. Then human. But he wasn’t human at all. The body had fit all wrong—and it was just a disguise, really. Now the human body had been torn apart, was bleeding freely into the earth, and it was like shaking off a veil. 

Hulk could feel something of himself bloom, then grow outwards. 

\--

Hulk sat up, still slick with the red blood, and there were no wounds on his broad, green chest, and Clint threw his arms around his neck, holding tight. 

“Oh, God,” Clint said. Clint’s face was wet too. Clint never cried. Gently, Hulk tucked his arms around Clint, framing Clint’s body like a shield. 

Inside, Hulk could feel Bruce nearly shaking with relief—Bruce had nearly died too, after all. Hulk looked inwards at Bruce, and Bruce just made a face back. All in a day of an Avenger, Bruce knew, but, Christ, give him a minute to recover, would he? 

And then, when Hulk dug in deeper, there was a new feeling as well. That human body was still inside him. Hulk could have tucked himself down small, and then let that other appearance mesh through his cells like a net. He could have looked like someone else, someone puny, but with his green eyes. There could have been that transformation, or an illusion of transformation. He thought about that idea for a moment, and then he put it aside. Then he let go of Clint, pressing a small kiss to Clint’s hair, before turning to help the others beat the Asgardian snake back through the Bifrost.


	8. Epilogue

Bruce and T’Challa had been sitting together in Bruce’s lab, discussing theoretical models on the molecular biology of shape-shifting. Bruce was wondering whether or not he should invite certain scientists affiliated with the X-Men over for lunch and science when Tony quietly slipped into the lab. 

“Ah, so you’re alive after all?” T’Challa asked lightly, but a wry smile on his mouth, as Tony came in, looking vaguely haggard. 

“I don’t know how you do it,” Tony confessed, grabbing one of the stools and perching on it. “You’re ruler of Wakanda, I’m CEO of Stark Industries—but here you are, looking perpetually as fresh as a leaf in spring, while sometimes I wonder if the company is going to be the end of me—“

“Sometimes I wonder if you have problems sharing the work,” T’Challa observed. “Even I don’t rule a country alone.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “If I was king of an African country-“ 

T’Challa coughed delicately. “Ah, Tony, you were here for a reason, I presume?” 

Tony blinked, then rubbed his face a little with one hand, trying to wake up again. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Hey, Bruce.”

Bruce was halfway through an email addressed to what looked like Dr. Haller of the X-Men, and then he looked over his shoulder at Tony in a distraction. “You needed me?”

“Yeah, about lunch—“ Tony braced himself for a moment, and then said, “I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to cancel for Friday—“

“Perhaps I will see if Steve has finished testing the training room upgrades,” T’Challa said, slipping out elegantly behind Tony, like some kind of panther ninja, and then Tony blinked, realizing that it was just him and Bruce in the room, suddenly. “What—“ Tony began, before giving up just as quickly. “Never mind, it’s T’Challa, there’s no explanation for that guy, of course— _anyway_ —”

“It’s all right, Tony,” Bruce said. He sounded tired, now. “I understand about lunch. Hope your meeting goes well—“

Bruce had turned back to the computer screen, his fingers typing at a mile per minute, when Tony waved a hand in front of his face, “No, wait, I’m not finished. Saturday—oh, well, you’d love it, it’s this great Indian place, Pepper recommended it to me—“

Bruce looked even more tired then, and Tony said, very quickly now, “We’ll order out, eat here at the mansion, you won’t even have to change out of your week-old lab clothes, or whatever you’re comfortable with, I don’t care.”

Bruce finally looked over at Tony. His expression was hard to read, and Tony said, “I really don’t. I don’t care. I mean! I care about having dinner with you, but I don’t care whatever else you want to do as long as you’re comfortable.”

“Clint hasn’t been talking to you, has he?”

“What?” Tony asked, startled. 

Bruce was quiet a moment (Tony wondered if he was talking to Hulk, just from the strange pause of it) but then Bruce just shook his head, and Tony went on, awkwardly, “I know, I’m not the best with people. I’m sorry. I. I was just hoping.”

Bruce tilted his head slightly, looking at Tony. Then he said, in a very straight-forward way, “Next to you, I look like a hobo, you know that right?”

“Well, you know. Science,” Tony said, gesturing vaguely around the lab.

“I mean,” Bruce said, “I always look like that. And you always look ready to step into the classiest, high-end places downtown—and. You’re a busy guy.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Tony said, after a moment. “I mean, unless you do. I’ve got my workshop clothes around here somewhere, if you don’t mind me smelling like the underside of a car—“

“Well, then. Dinner sounds great,” Bruce said. He’d turned his attention back to his computer screen to pull an incoming email into its appropriate folder to read later, just a flick of his hand across the illuminated screen. Then, as an afterthought, he turned and stood a little to kiss Tony at the corner of his mouth. Then he went back to typing. He smiled a little, though, when Tony leaned down to put his hands loosely around his shoulders, and just stood there for a brief moment, warm at his back. 

\---

Early Saturday afternoon, Jan, Carol, and Hulk had gone down to Central Park, just for a walk and the fresh air. Clint had to finish up some surveillance work with JARVIS, tweaking the security systems of the mansion, before running down to the park himself to catch up. 

He found the group of them waiting for them in the area of the park near E. 59th Street and 5th Avenue. Hulk was small that day, as they liked to joke, and wearing a button-up shirt in shades of green and lavender, and Clint asked Jan and Carol where they had gotten the ice cream bars they were scarfing down, while Hulk wandered off a little ways to look at the foliage of the trees, and Clint had to jog to catch up with him. 

Clint caught Hulk’s hand, and just as Hulk said, looking over at him sideways, “I’m in disguise today.”

“I know,” Clint said. 

Hulk’s fingers seemed so small against his, even though, technically, they were a ‘normal’ size. What the hell did normal even mean anyway, Clint wanted to know. And now Jan was yelling at them, “Come on you guys! I want to find the carousel! And take a picture of Hulk on the carousel too—“

“You doing okay?” Clint asked, walking with Hulk back to the girls. “I know how, with the crowds—“

Hulk shrugged. Then he smirked at Clint, in that beautifully familiar way of his. And then they were rejoining Jan and Carol to find the carousel. Or chase ducks. Or whatever it was that Jan had planned for the afternoon off, while Carol readjusted the scarf around her neck and shoulders, elegantly, and Clint shifted the compound bow in its case against his back. Hulk was fussing a bit with his shirt, and his eyes were very green against the color of the soft material, and Clint thought of the person he knew hidden behind this human-shaped appearance, and he smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Misc. additional comments on the writing of Hulk and Bruce here can be found in this rambling response I gave to a question in His Favorite Things: [here](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/1111986).


End file.
